Moby: The Official Thread

We've had a few threads based on Moby - people almost getting hit by his car, people wandering into his house, and certain performances - but I wanted to make a thread where we could discuss him in a more holistic fashion.

And what better time to start this thread than with the announcement of a new album:

ok, ta-da, official next album announcement update. my next album is called 'destroyed' and it comes out in the middle of may sometime

hi, ok, ta-da, official next album announcement update (i would write blog but i still have some odd, preternatural loathing for the word 'blog', although now i've written it twice, blog blog blog. now five times. i'll stop now).

so! next album update (not blog)

my next album is called 'destroyed' and it comes out in the middle of may sometime. musically it's very melodic and atmospheric and electronic, and if i had to sum it up i would describe it as: 'broken down melodic electronic music for empty cities at 2 a.m'.

that's what it sounds like to me, anyway. and the music was all originally written late at night while on tour, as i often have insomnia and spend a lot of times awake in hotel rooms at 2 a.m when everyone else in the world seems to be asleep. so rather than buy more drum machines on ebay (as nice as they are) i try to spend my insomnia time working on music. then i take the songs back to my studio and try to finish them with my weird collection of old, broken down drum machines and synthesizers and i try to convince my friends to sing on it (my friends emily zuzik, inyang bassey, and joy malcom sing on the record, as do i). then i put the songs on a record. then i call it 'destroyed'. then i put it out in may of 2011. at least that is the plan.

why 'destroyed'? well, in addition to the album i'm also putting out a book of photos (with the nice people at damiani/d.a.p). i've been a photographer since i was 10 years old, and i've decided to finally release a book of photographs. i know, in the age of digital photography everyone is a photographer. but i've been shooting pictures for 35 years with a nikon f, and i used to work in darkrooms, developing and printing, so i feel like i'm not a complete dilettante digital photographer.

so, the title: 'destroyed'. i was in laguardia airport and my flight was delayed and i was wandering around and i saw a small sign that said 'unattended luggage will be destroyed', but the sign only fit one word at a time so i waited until it read 'destroyed' and i took a picture and somehow the picture and the title make sense to me when i listen to the music on the album and when i look at the other pictures in the book and yes this is a huge long run on sentence about the title and cover image of the book and album but i like run on sentences because they remind me of 'a prayer for owen meany' by john irving.

here's the picture, i hope you like it (more information and text after the picture, so keep scrolling down, thank you)

in addition to the album we're also putting out an e.p. 'e.p' means 'extended play', another vestigal descriptive term from the halcyon days of vinyl.

the e.p contains 3 songs: be the one, sevastopol and victoria lucas.

i hope you like them. the e.p is free free free, as i think that increases the chances the music will actually be listened to. also i'm the worlds best businessman, as evidenced by starting mobygratis.com which also gives away free music.

some trivia: 'be the one' was in the paul haggis movie 'the next 3 days', 'sevastopol' is an interesting city in the ukraine, and 'victoria lucas' was sylvia plath's pseudonym.

i made 3 videos for these songs (all shot on little camcorders while travelling). the 'be the one' video was shot while i was flying from nyc to l.a and then edited by my friend jo haggis (paul's sister). if it looks in any way good it's because she edited it. watch it here.

'sevastopol' was shot while flying to brazil to dj with carl cox. watch it here.

and 'victoria lucas' was shot at night in l.a when seemingly everyone else was asleep. watch it here.

ok, i'm rambling. here are the salient details: new album released sometime in mid may (here's the title and the songs that are on the album):

destroyed.

the broken places
be the one
sevastopol
the low hum
rockets
the day
the right thing
after
victoria lucas
blue moon
lie down in darkness
stella maris
the violent bear it away
lacrimae
when you are old

a book of photos, also called 'destroyed', released sometime in the middle of may on damiani/dap.

and an e.p released today with: be the one, sevastopol, victoria lucas

oh. and finally, i'll be touring a lot from may - september, mainly in europe but also in north america. maybe some other places, as well, but i don't know yet: http://www.moby.com/live

and i'll be having gallery shows of the photographs in different cities, to be announced soon. and there are lots of other things to announce, but i've rambled on enough, so i'll announce more stuff in a month or so.

thanks, really, and i hope that you like the album and the book and the e.p.

-moby

p.s-oh, you might notice that we've redesigned moby.com i hope you like it, the old design was feeling a bit clunky. this new one seems to generally work better.

p.p.s-here are 3 random pictures from the book that i like:

Discuss.

Originally Posted by canexplain

I try to be politically pc more than most here: As a dude, anyone who could put a shark up a gals pc body, is pretty creepy, different and interesting. Just saying big time ..... cr****

Re: Moby: The Official Thread

Moby live = two of the best shows I've seen. I'm pretty excited for more Moby.

Originally Posted by guedita

The childless 20-something year olds on the board who find a 50 something year old man fucking teenage prostitutes distasteful will probably change the hum of their tune once they produce babies, definitely. That's the missing link.

Re: Moby: The Official Thread

Agreed. I really like Wait For Me. Does he incorporate any of that material live? Seems like the transitions would be difficult.

he played a lot of it on his last live tour. and it was really good. his stuff generally sounds more rock live.

I don't expect him to do a really downtempo set ever. (see: more obscure tracks off I Like to Score, Songs). but I can dream about it. lying around in fields as his band does a live rendition of Alone. sigh.

Re: Moby: The Official Thread

Play is still a fantastic album and Wait For Me really surprised me. I am super bummed I missed his last NA live tour. I hope I get a chance to make up for that mistake this time around.

Originally Posted by bmack86

And it's been long established that Chris hates fun.

Originally Posted by Hatinisbad

I took my niece this year and it was her first Coachella. It was so fun to see it through her eyes. She thought it felt like a magical scene from Shreck. The one where all the fairy tale creatures meet for the first time in Shreck's swamp.

Re: Moby: The Official Thread

Stoked on the new album, ep and eventual US tour. I'm guessing he'll be around NA in the Autumn/Fall again.

Originally Posted by Dale Gribble

...I really like Wait For Me. Does he incorporate any of that material live? Seems like the transitions would be difficult.

The Wait for Me show I saw in Seattle was easily as good as the Play tour show I saw in Phoenix. Here's the set-list I picked up at the Seattle show:

During this set, Moby did a little talk about how Jimi Hendrix and himself have only had 1 song each within the US's Top 40. Jimi's song was Purple Haze and Moby's was South Side, so before playing South Side, Moby and band performed Purple Haze in its entirety, which was pure awesomeness.